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Climate Week NYC once again underscored the urgency of our global climate challenges and the pivotal role of collaboration in driving real change. As a team deeply engaged in food, agriculture and sustainability, we’re back from this year’s events with renewed purpose and several key takeaways that reflect both Atlas Agro’s mission, and where we fit into the broader movement towards climate resilience.

  1. Shifting Mindsets on Emissions

The conversation has shifted from “hard to abate” sectors to “in process of abating” emissions. With effective government subsidies and research investments that planted the seeds, we are entering an era of viable, scalable solutions for abatement in industrial sectors like aviation, shipping, cement, steel and chemicals. These sectors have significant emissions, and the pathways to decarbonization are complex. We are committed to driving meaningful progress in decarbonizing fertilizer production globally, alongside the many others who now share our once unthinkable audacity.

  1. Navigating the Valley of Death

While promising at-scale green solutions are on the horizon, many across the ” hard-to-abate” sectors are still struggling to cross the “commercial valley of death.” For companies like ours, this challenge revolves around financing infrastructure investments for startups that lack robust balance sheets. It’s a long game, and bold, collaborative efforts are essential to create demand and facilitate deployment of green technologies, ensuring that innovative solutions can secure the necessary funding to reach market readiness.  The benefit of meeting with peers working across these sectors is sharing how we are all working to address these challenges to accelerate deployment.

  1. Emphasizing Green Premiums

For technologies navigating this commercial valley of death, a significant theme was the call for immediate action to deploy transformative technologies, emphasizing the economic trade-offs with the transition to greener alternatives. While green options may initially be more expensive, they often lead to long-term savings and benefits like reduced emissions and lower operational costs. We must accelerate the adoption of these innovations and technologies to bring down costs and drive decarbonization at scale across industries, including the food and agriculture value chain.

  1. Action Over Perfection

“It’s time” was the mantra of the week. This energy is long overdue and practice over perfection rules the day. There is an urgent need to implement impactful solutions, emphasizing the importance of taking action now. We need to act swiftly and decisively and acknowledge that perfection is not an achievable standard. In areas like regenerative agriculture, there is no on-size-fits all, this message rang clear. We need a wide array of solutions all deploying in real time (i.e. regen ag, carbon removal, addressing hard to abate emissions) to meet the challenge at hand. Rather than debating on which solution is contributing most effectively under experimental conditions, the sentiment has shifted to trying many things in many places because we have many of the solutions we need already, and the key is scaling them in practice. Let’s roll up our sleeves, lead the way and the incumbents will follow.

  1. Urgent action now

Companies that can lead should lead because we know committing to impactful actions will take time. CSOs are increasingly cautious about what counts as legitimate action, and this has led to inaction. This mindset hampers solution deployment, and we must shift from a focus on academic purity to tangible results. We have solutions that deliver measurable impact, we need to drive the deployment of all of the available technologies to have a chance at passing on liveable climate, and we can worry about credit later as the accounting standards are actively evolving.

  1. The Power of Transparency

Several climate leaders emphasized that sharing knowledge is crucial to advancing impactful action. Companies should take a hard look at their internal materials related to net zero and decide what’s truly proprietary versus what information could help their peers and the market develop faster. We must openly discuss our experiences and strategies to help others learn, grow and gain confidence that they aren’t going it alone. Collective learning will accelerate progress.

  1. Sustainable Food Supply Means Support for Farmers

At the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) we were seated among dignitaries, policy makers, rock stars, POWs and other commitment makers—those who have declared their measurable commitments to climate resilience. There, USDA announced its $466 million investment in Food Assistance and Agricultural Development Projects Worldwide, including direct support for farmers for taking climate-smart actions on their land to make sustainable choices rewarded and affordable, and incentivize carbon reduction on agricultural lands.

  1. Investing in Green Infrastructure

Another resounding theme this week as the UN General Assembly also gathered in NYC, was the urgency around sustainable infrastructure investment, with an emphasis on the necessity of firm financial commitments. The future of our audacious climate goals hinges on closing the deal on green investments now.

  1. Diverse Perspectives and Collaboration

The diversity of voices at Climate Week and the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) emphasized the multifaceted nature of climate solutions. This eclectic mix fosters innovative approaches and partnerships. We are better together, and gatherings like this remind us that we must keep doing this work, especially on our toughest days. We are on the cusp of global transformation, and we must keep at it and hold each other up along the way.

As we move forward, these insights will guide our actions at Atlas Agro. We are committed to leveraging our unique position between farmers and food companies to continue to foster the connections we made during Climate Week NYC 2024 and beyond, to drive impactful solutions in sustainable agriculture.

It’s time. We’re ready. Join us as we forge a path toward a more resilient and sustainable future.

 

By Claudia Herbert & Gina Zejdlik